People go to colleges to learn. What’s the problem here?
The College Fix reports:
Professors can’t show images of Native American ‘cultural items’ in some California collegesThe Los Rios Community College District continues to enforce a moratorium on “images and reproductions of Native American human remains and cultural items” after a new policy to narrow the ban was stalled, waiting for Native American tribal partners’ approval.The moratorium, which went into effect in October 2023, prohibits professors from teaching and researching using Native American cultural items, human remains and images or reproductions of these items or remains, according to the policy documents reviewed by The College Fix.The ban has received pushback from scholars both in and outside the district, with one telling The Fix it is “like a sledgehammer to our collections.”Despite multiple letters calling out the policy for violating the First Amendment from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the moratorium continues. In March, FIRE Program Counsel Ross Marchand wrote a third letter to the district after a policy revision stalled.The district, which oversees four California community colleges, did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls from The College Fix within the past two weeks asking for clarification and reasoning for the policy.An explanation can be found on the district website, though.It states the moratorium was implemented at the request of and out of respect for the district’s tribal partners. It is also due to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, a 1990 federal law. California has its own version, called CalNAGPRA, which passed in 2001.Both laws require colleges receiving federal or state funding to work with Native American tribes and repatriate human remains and cultural items to them. Images or reproductions do not fall under that law, but are included in the district’s moratorium.FIRE’s main First Amendment concern is the inclusion of the “images or reproductions” in the district’s policy.
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